Curing Back Pain & Sciatica Naturally

Back Pain Books

The Best Back Pain Books

Here are the best books I’ve found on back pain. Each one has important information, but none of them are complete. It’s a good idea to get as much information as possible, from as many different sources (trusted sources) as possible. If possible, I would recommend you read all of the books listed here, and more. These are just some books to get you started.

This is one of the best books we’ve found for back pain. It’s an eBook which means you will not get a physical copy of the book, but it’s by far the best source I’ve found for low back pain and trigger point information. The book is written with a humorous style that keeps the information interesting and entertaining.

Highly informative, this book has helped me eliminate much of my back pain and it’s opened my eyes to the truth behind the cause of low back and hip pain, sciatica, and trigger points. Save Yourself offers many solutions to combat common trigger points, and offers advice on other conditions as well. This book is our number one recommended back pain book! Right now you can get a special 2 for 1 deal when you buy ‘Save Yourself from Low Back Pain’ you will also receive a copy of ‘Save Yourself from Trigger Points and Myofascial Pain Syndrome’.

Trigger point therapy is one of the most intriguing and fastest-growing bodywork styles in the world. Medical doctors, chiropractors, physical therapists, and massage therapists are all beginning to use this technique to relieve formerly undiagnosable muscle and joint pain—conditions that studies have shown to be the cause of nearly 25 percent of all doctor visits. The technique involves applying short, repeated massage strokes to trigger points, tiny contraction knots in muscle tissue where restricted circulation and lack of oxygen cause referred pain. Trigger points create pain throughout the body in predictable patterns characteristic to each muscle, producing discomfort ranging from mild to severe. Trigger point massage increases circulation and oxygenation in the area and often produces instant relief. This dynamic technique has made a huge impact among health professionals and the public alike, becoming an overnight classic in the field of pain relief. The book has sold over 220,000 copies since the release of the first edition in 2001. The second edition is a complete update and includes a new chapter specifically for massage professionals, as well as a chapter on systematic muscle relaxation techniques that can reinforce the therapeutic power of trigger point work.

For some, a pain-free life is only a memory, but it doesn’t have to be. Through my experience in healing my own back pain, coupled with extensive training and research, I have developed a technique to alleviate back pain–the Gokhale Method. It has been a privilege and a pleasure to help thousands of people re-learn the way their bodies were designed to move–gracefully and with ease. I have spent fifteen years teaching the technique, honing it for clarity and efficiency, and am delighted to present it here for general use. Many physicians now refer their back patients to me, and almost all the patients start to improve from the first lesson. In many cases the results are dramatic (see page 24). But then there are the people who can’t come to see me, people who call me from the East Coast or the Midwest, perhaps friends or relatives of my patients, who are suffering terribly and need help. For years, I have wished there were a book that I could send them with step-by-step instructions and demonstrations of my technique. And here it is.

With your hands you have potential to relieve everyday aches, pains and ailments without taking drugs, to improve your health, and to increase your vitality. Acupressure is an ancient healing art that uses the fingers to stimulate key points on the skin that, in turn, activate the body’s natural self-healing processes. With this book, it is a skill you can learn now–and use in your own home.

In Acupressure’s Potent Points, Michael Reed Gach, founder and director of the Acupressure Institute of America, reveals simple techniques that enable you to relieve headaches, arthritis, colds and flu, insomnia, backaches, hiccups, leg pain, hot flashes, depression, and more–using the power and sensitivity of your own hands.

This practical guide covers more than forty ailments and symptoms, from allergies to wrist pain, providing pressure-point maps and exercises to relieve pain and restore function. Acupressure complements conventional medical care, and enables you to take a vital role in becoming well and staying well. With this book you can turn your hands into healing tools–and start feeling good now.

Healing Back Pain promises permanent elimination of back pain without drugs, surgery, or exercise. It should have been titled Understanding TMS Pain, because it discusses one particular cause of back pain–Tension Myositis Syndrome (TMS)–and isn’t really a program for self-treatment, with only five pages of action plan (and many more pages telling why conventional methods don’t work). According to John E. Sarno, M.D., TMS is the major cause of pain in the back, neck, shoulders, buttocks, and limbs–and it is caused not by structural abnormalities but by the mind’s effort to repress emotions. He’s not saying that your pain is all in your head; rather, he’s saying that the battle going on in your mind results in a real physical disorder that may affect muscles, nerves, tendons, or ligaments. An injury may have triggered the disorder, but is not the cause of the amount or intensity of the resulting pain. According to Sarno, the mind tricks you into not facing repressed emotion by making you focus on pain in the body. When this realization sinks in (“and it must sink in, for mere intellectual appreciation of the process is not enough”), the trick doesn’t work any more, and there’s no need for the pain.

How to improve back health through exercise, yoga-based stretches, and stress reductiona reasonable plan. Brownstein (a clinical instructor of medicine at the University of Hawaii, Manoa) suffered multiple injuries and severe back pain for 20 years; when traditional medicines and surgery failed to help, he found relief by creating a regimen drawing on yoga, meditation, and other alternative therapies. His program is sound, and his starting point valuablerather than looking for an initiating catastrophic injury as the basis for designing treatment, chronic back pain sufferers would do better to understand their acute event as the culmination of years of stress, poor body mechanics, and possible weight and nutrition problems. His second important point is that almost all back pain originates in the muscles (rather than bone or other structures). This program is aimed, therefore at muscular fitness, principally with the extensive, progressive stretches based on yoga poses. Brownstein is careful to give appropriate cautions along the way: when to seek medical help, possible signs of serious disease. Nutritional advice, stress- reduction exercises, advice on lifestyle changes, and “Emotional and Spiritual Lessons for Healing” round out the program. Reliable advice for a common problem, with a spiritual/yoga flavor that will have special appeal for some sufferers.

Dr. John Sarno caused quite a ruckus back in 1990 when he suggested that back pain is all in the head. In his bestselling book, Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection, he claimed that backaches, slipped discs, headaches, and other chronic pains are due to suppressed anger, and that once the cause of the anger is addressed, the pain will vanish. Relieved Amazon.com readers call this book “liberating” and say “it sounds too good to be true, but it is true.” Sarno has returned with The Mindbody Prescription, in which he explains how emotions including guilt, anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem can stimulate the brain to manufacture physical symptoms including fibromyalgia, repetitive strain injuries, migraine headaches, hay fever, colitis, ulcers, and even acne. If these psychosomatic problems all sound a little Freudian, what with the repression of emotions in the unconscious, it’s because Sarno unapologetically borrows from Freud for the basis of his theory and cites childhood trauma as a major source of emotional problems. He also says that his program is a “talking cure” of sorts, since patients must be convinced their pain is rooted in their emotions before healing can begin. The book reads a bit like psychology text, with Sarno quoting from psychoanalytic theorists including Heinz Kohut and Graeme Taylor and the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition). Sarno walks through the neurophysiology of mindbody disorders, lists the symptoms of dozens of disorders that he believes are emotion-based, and offers a basic program for overcoming psychosomatic pain and illness. His recovery plan includes meditation and sometimes psychotherapy, including behavior modification, and stopping any medication or physical therapy. While Sarno’s ideas seem radical, they were commonly implemented earlier in the 20th century, when psychoanalysis was at its peak of popularity, and they promise to become more accepted in our current era of alternative medical therapies and anger management.

Working closely with trigger point pioneers Janet Travell and David Simons, Sharon Sauer developed a range of trigger point therapy treatment protocols for many areas of the body. Trigger Point Therapy for Low Back Pain presents her protocols for lumbar, buttock, and ilio-sacral pain. These gentle techniques are easy to learn and administer at home. They include compression, stretching, and range of motion exercises for the muscles that refer pain to the lower back and hip areas.

The book includes an overview of myofascial trigger point therapy, describing the basic process of treatment. It also includes an index of all pain and dysfunction symptoms pertaining to the hip and lower back, including pain, numbness, weakness, or restricted range of motion in specific areas, which will enable readers to find the muscles most likely to be the cause of the specific symptoms presented. Although the book is geared toward readers wishing to use the techniques for self-care, one chapter details how health care professionals can add these techniques to their practices.

Back Pain: a movement problem is a practical manual to assist all students and clinicians concerned with the evaluation, diagnosis and management of the movement related problems seen in those with spinal pain disorders. It offers an integrative model of posturo-movement dysfunction which describes the more commonly observed features and related key patterns of altered control. This serves as a framework, guiding the practitioner’s assessment of the individual patient.

Key features:

1. The book explores motor control and functional movement, its development, and explores how and why it is altered in people with back pain.

2. It integrates contemporary science with the insights and experience of extensive clinical practice.

3. The book maps the more common clinical patterns of presentation in those with spinal pain and related disorders.

4. It provides a simple clinical classification system for back pain.

5. Abundantly illustrated to present concepts and to illustrate the difference between so called normal and dysfunctional presentations.

Assessment and Treatment of Muscle Imbalance: The Janda Approach blends postural techniques, neurology, and functional capabilities in order to alleviate chronic musculoskeletal pain and promote greater functionality. Developed by Vladimir Janda, respected neurologist and physiotherapist , the Janda approach presents a unique perspective to rehabilitation. In contrast to a more traditional structural view, the Janda approach is functional—emphasizing the importance of the sensorimotor system in controlling movement and chronic musculoskeletal pain syndromes from sports and general activities. Assessment and Treatment of Muscle Imbalance: The Janda Approach is the only text to offer practical, evidence-based application of Janda’s theories.

Filled with illustrations, photos, and step-by-step instructions, Assessment and Treatment of Muscle Imbalance uses a systematic approach in presenting information that can be used in tandem with other clinical techniques. This resource for practitioners features the following tools:

–A rationale for rehabilitation of the musculoskeletal sytem based on the relationship between the central nervous system and the motor system –A systematic method for the functional examination of the muscular system –Treatment processes focusing on the triad of normalization of peripheral structures, restoration of muscle balance, and facilitation of afferent systems and sensorimotor training –The role of muscle imbalance and functional pathology of sensorimotor systems for specific pain complaints, including cervical pain syndrome, upper- and lower-extremity pain syndromes, and low back pain syndromes

Assessment and Treatment of Muscle Imbalance provides an evidence-based explanation of muscle imbalance. The step-by-step Janda system of evaluation is explained—including analysis of posture, balance, and gait; evaluation of movement patterns; testing of muscle length; and assessment of the soft tissue. The text explores treatment options for muscle imbalance through facilitation and inhibition techniques and sensorimotor training to restore neuromsucular function. It also includes four case studies examining musculoskeletal conditions and showing how the Janda approach compares with other treatments. This text combines theory, evidence, and applications to assist clinicians in implementing the Janda approach into their practice.